I peer at the price tag. “Yeah, it looks good. I want to get two or three of different colors and sizes. Instruments are personal. They have to feel right when you play them.”
“Spoken like a true musician, Bill. But what a cool way to mix your day job with your talent, yeah?”
“It is pretty cool, I agree.” I can’t hold back my sigh, however. “But for the idiot hockey player I got stuck babysitting because of it.”
“Oh, you got a hockey player to go with the hockey money?”
“Of course. Big public relations thing. The money comes with strings.”
“Most money does.” He cocks his head to the side and winks.
“Well, these strings are called Calum Lefleur.”
“Calum Lefleur?” Stuart’s voice cracks as he fans himself with his hands. “I have such a sports crush on that dude. Holy smokes, he’s like the best goalie in the league.”
“Well, that’s what he said about himself, too. Cocky jerk-wagon that he is.”
Stuart shrugs. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”
“Puke. Whatever. I assume he’ll get bored of it after a while, so I’ll just entertain him until then, in the name of putting together this awesome program for the kids.”
“Well, a little cocky can’t hurt when you’re out there getting a hard hockey puck winged at your head every few minutes.”
I make a “meh” noise as we play around with the bass guitars some more. Once I’ve made my decisions, we move on to electric, acoustic, and bass guitars, grab a drum kit, then two keyboards. I talk to the manager once we get everything picked out, explaining what we’re doing, and he gives us a nice discount so that we can use more of our budget. This enables us to buy guitar leads, straps, music stands, and sheet music, but also the amps for the guitars. A portable mixer is added to the mix with complementary speakers. If we ever get a “band” up and running, we’ll add in more speakers, maybe some mics. It’s just so exciting.
As we load everything into the back of Stuart’s work van, he says, “You look very smug right now. Proud of your negotiation skills?”
“Proud of my begging skills, more like. Maybe I should be a fundraiser instead of a program director.”
“Maybe you should be a rock star instead of a program director.”
“Did Sven put you up to that comment?” I give him the side-eye.
He shrugs. “You guys are good enough—”
“Ugh, not you, too. Dude, I have told them time and time again that it will happen if and when it’s meant to happen.”
“It could happen faster if—”
“Don’t you dare. Stuart Robertson, I swear if you say one word about my parents, I will cut you.”
He laughs and holds his hands up in surrender.
As we load the last box, he pulls me into a side-hug and kisses my temple. “You are a badass Billie Hirsch. The kids are going to love these.”
He slams the van doors, and I wander to the passenger side, feeling good about what we’re doing for the kids while also overthinking the kiss my best friend just placed on the side of my head. It’s not like Stuart hasn’t been cuddly with me before. He has, and while I usually allow it, I’ve had more and more concern over how he views it. Does he think we’re headed toward something beyond friendship? Would I want that if we were?
He’s important to me and he has been for a long time. We met when I came to live in Las Vegas with my grandmother, we were inseparable all through high school. He knows my crazy parents, knows the reason I came to Vegas, knows how much I love music and how much I don’t love the idea of asking my parents to get us an “in” in the industry. I tell him everything, and if we tried something and it didn’t work, I’d be devastated to lose him. I know he likes me as more than a friend. I can feel it. He would never push it. He would only do something if I initiated it, and I appreciate that so much.
“Are we taking these to the club?” he asks, starting the engine and pulling me from my thoughts.
“Uh, yeah. If you could help me unload, then take me to band practice, I would be very appreciative.”
“That’s all I am to you? Muscle? And a car?” His grin tells me he’s not that upset about it.
“Well, I’ll have to make you dinner one night soon to thank you for being muscle and car and best friend ever. Also, this isn’t your car anyway.”
“Yes, I’m using my work van to assist you. Breaking the rules just to show you how much I care about your program.”
I narrow my eyes at him, and he just laughs it off.
The next afternoon, I’ve unboxed all of the equipment and am in the process of tuning a drum kit when goalie boy wonder walks in.
He does not say hello.
He does not ask me how things are going.
No, he stands with his hands on his hips, surveying the instruments with a scowl on his face.
And I simply refuse to respond to whatever game he’s playing at.
So, I ignore him completely. I bang on the drums, adjust the heads, and make sure everything is nice and tuned while he pokes around. He peers at the guitars for a while before picking one up, strapping it on, plugging it into an amp. He plucks out a few notes, messing with the tuning as he does so. Systematically, he does this with every guitar, electric and acoustic. He doesn’t skip a single one.
Finally, he looks up, a bright red guitar still strapped across his shoulder. “These guitars are garbage. I hate them all.”
“Well, hello to you, too.” I peer over at him from the drum dial I’ve set on top of my snare and narrow my eyes.
“Why did you get such cheap instruments?”
“Because these kids are just starting to learn and we’re a nonprofit, so I wanted to stretch the budget. And some of these will be part of a lending library and I don’t want a reason to freak out if they don’t come back in a timely manner.”
“I think they should learn on good equipment, so they can hear what these instruments should sound like.”
“This isn’t music appreciation class, Cal. The kids want to learn the basics of how to play. They need a creative outlet. These instruments will work fine. Most of these kids don’t have families who can afford stuff like this, so it will be really exciting for them, even without the most expensive equipment.”
“I just think—”
I put up a hand to stop him from saying anything else. “Look, I need you to just chill out and teach the guitar. Do the little PR thing and then move on. Can you do that? Do you even know how to teach someone to play the guitar?”
He glares at me for a second but then sort of tunes me out, going back to the red guitar and tuning it a bit more before plucking out a familiar tune. I think it’s a White Stripes song, and I listen in, adding in a drumbeat to confirm. Well, hell…
Calum Lefleur is a decent guitarist.
He’s clearly very technical in his approach, but good, nonetheless. At one point, I catch him looking at me as I drum, the same look of rapt fascination on his face as when he watched us play at the bar. He appreciates music and musicians—that much is obvious. Which will be the tie that binds, the thing to make this partnership work, I think. I hope…